Athletics general manager Billy Beane said last October that he felt Daric Barton was the “best first baseman in the league” last season. My how things can change in a hurry.

According to Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle, Barton was optioned to Triple-A Sacramento following tonight’s victory over the Mets. He was presumably sent down to make room for second baseman Mark Ellis, who is expected to return from the disabled list tomorrow.

Barton is batting just .212/.325/.267 with zero homers and 20 RBI over 280 plate appearances this season. The 25-year-old entered play Tuesday with the second lowest slugging percentage among qualified batters. Yes, only Chone Figgins is worse. Barton was dropped out of the No. 2 spot by former manager Bob Geren earlier this month and found himself on the bench over the past two games, so this move doesn’t come as a major surprise.

Conor Jackson will likely draw most of the starts at first base for now. The 29-year-old is hitting .258/.350/.321 with one home run, 19 RBI and a .670 OPS over 184 plate appearances this season.

Barton is Beane’s boy, much like Erubiel Durazo was. Up until this season, it was fairly obvious as to why since Barton was an on-base (walk) machine with gold glove-caliber first base play. But prior to last season and ALL of this season, Barton is no more than a glorified AAA guy taking one of the 30 first base jobs in the MLB.

Hopefully he gets some sort of a groove back, and makes his way back after showing some consistency, putting the A’s into a predicament with either moving him back up, trading him, trading Ellis, or bringing Chris Carter up (and likely parting with Barton anyways). But until then, Barton needs some much overdue seasoning. Here’s to hoping he gets it.

Durazo gave my friend an I a thumbs up from the batting circle when he was in AAA a few years back. We kept chanting “Erubiel” to the tune of “Emilio” from Night at the Roxbury. That thumbs up changed my life.

Like I’ve said before, he’s basically Sean Burroughs 2.0. I’m not really big on rah-rah type guys, but a player could at least look like he gives a shit out there. I obviously don’t really know what Barton’s intensity level was, but he sure looked to me like he was just going through the motions.